seman, but he was nowhere to
be seen. He had evidently either abandoned the chase or ridden ahead.

It seemed equally a part of what he believed was a providential
intercession, that on arriving at the station he found there was a
vacant seat inside the coach. It was diagonally opposite that occupied
by the lady, and he was thus enabled to study her face as it was bent
over her book, whose pages, however, she scarcely turned. After her
first casual glance of curiosity at the new passenger, she seemed to
take no more notice of him, and Key began to wonder if he had not
mistaken her previous interrogating look. Nor was it his only
disturbing query; he was conscious of the same disappointment now that
he could examine her face more attentively, as in his first cursory
glance. She was certainly handsome; if there was no longer the
freshness of youth, there was still the indefinable charm of the woman
of thirty, and with it the delicate curves of matured muliebrity and
repose. There were lines, particularly around the mouth and fringed
eyelids, that were deepened as by pain; and the chin, even in its
rounded fullness, had the angle of determination. From what was
visible, below the brown linen duster that she wore, she appeared to be
tastefully although not richly dressed.

As the coach at last drove away from the station, a grizzled,
farmer-looking man seated beside her uttered a sigh of relief, so
palpable as to attract the general attention. Turning to his fair
neighbor with a smile of uncouth but good-humored apology, he said in
explanation:--

"You'll excuse me, miss! I don't know ezactly how YOU'RE feelin',--for
judging from your looks and gin'ral gait, you're a stranger in these
parts,--but ez for ME, I don't mind sayin' that I never feel ezactly
safe from these yer road agents and stage robbers ontil arter we pass
Skinner's station. All along thet Galloper's Ridge it's jest tech and
go like; the woods is swarmin' with 'em. But once past Skinner's,
you're all right. They never dare go below that. So ef you don't
mind, miss, for it's bein' in your presence, I'll jest pull off my
butes and ease my feet for a spell."

Neither the inconsequence of this singular request, nor the smile it
evoked on the faces of the other passengers, seemed to disturb the
lady's abstraction. Scarcely lifting her eyes from her book, she bowed
a grave assent.

"You see, miss," he continued, "and you gents," he added, taking